After All
by Glory Alchemist
Summary: The heartache of losing a brother can be unimaginable. A sort of prequel to "The New Guy."


**This one shot will make more snse if you read "The New Guy" first. I actually wrote this before I'd even thought up the idea for that story.**

**I do not own Star Wars.**

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><p>There is emptiness. A profound emptiness that words cannot begin to convey. The sight of his body, broken and pale before me, is a knife slicing through my heart and lungs, the pain making the simple task of breathing impossible. It could have been me that died. It should have been me. If I could do it all over again, I would insist on being the one to enter the building first. It would cost me my life, but it would be a price I would gladly pay, if only he could still be alive.<p>

_I yanked my helmet off, spitting blood from my mouth and reached for my brother without even thinking, carefully easing his own helmet off. I groaned, my head spinning, feeling the shrapnel and debris raining down, striking my face and armor. I blinked and clutched him closer, hiding my face against his neck, inhaling sharply. His chest heaved rapidly, and I pulled back to look at him. He coughed and I was speechless, cupping his blood-splattered face with one hand. _

_He let out a low sigh, face grimacing and twisting in pain before smoothing away. I looked down and saw transparasteel that had shattered in the explosion, chunks in his abdomen somehow. Probably when he twisted to cover me. Blood was seeping out over his white armor that hadn't done a thing to protect him. I choked on thin air as he groaned quietly and only pressed closer to me, causing me to bite back a cry. My eyes were burning. I pulled him closer and rubbed his back as he coughed again, blinking his bright brown eyes against the blood that had started caking on his face._

_"Hey," he said quietly, voice rasping as he coughed a bit again. "You're safe," he added, body slackening just a bit more in relief as I felt his heartbeat pounding painfully slow and full in his chest. _

_"You idiot, " I choked out as I clutched him closer and fought down panic. I could tell by his labored breathing and the feeling of the pulse in his neck as I held his head to my chest that he didn't have much time. "Just hold on. I'll make you better." _

_I'd saved so many others, even when most thought they were beyond saving. I'd even managed what some might have called miracles. But when it mattered most, I couldn't do it. _

_I couldn't save him. _

_I tried. With every fiber of my being, I tried. Everything else faded to a gray haze and the only things that existed were me and him and our slow, stuttering heartbeat. I didn't know what was happening, but it felt as if everything that I had, everything that I _was_, was draining out of me. I gave it gladly and poured it all into him. It wasn't enough._

_He died. Right there in my arms, he died. I _felt_ him die._

_"No," I whimpered. I wasn't sure how I felt or even if I felt. Maybe I felt everything. Maybe I felt nothing. I didn't know. I didn't. I tried to force the reality away as I shifted him in my arms. If only I could just move away from it. But I couldn't. I knew I couldn't._

_My world had ended. He was my world. But he didn't even know it. Now he never would know. I'd never been brave enough to tell him. Now I never could._

I walk over to the table where his body is lying. I want to turn away, to stick my head in the proverbial sand, and hide from the emptiness and grief, if only for a while, but that isn't possible. So I walk. Step by step, though it feels as though razors rather than the smooth floor of the medbay are beneath my feet.

After what seems like forever, I finally make it to his side, and put my hand on his. I'm struck by the fact that it's cool. His skin was always, always warm. I take the hand I'm holding in both of mine, as though I can give him my warmth. But I can't. He's gone-forever. I will never see him smile again, never feel the press of his strong back against mine, never smell his scent of cool metal and warm rain. I will never be able to look into his beautiful, brown eyes, and know that here was another being who knew me. Knew me as well as I know myself, and who accepted and even loved me, even though I know I'm hard to like. I wish I could thank him for that, but now I will never get the chance.

I open my mouth to say his name, but as I move my lips, no sound comes out. Another painful reminder that he is gone. There are so many things I will never get the chance to do, or say. So many missed opportunities. The thought is another weight upon me, though I thought that the burden I carried couldn't get any heavier.

_I took his still-warm hand without even hearing what was going on around me. An explosion went off somewhere but I didn't look up, not even when the building trembled around us and our Jedi general sounded the retreat. I was too consumed by the mind-numbing silence that had enveloping me so completely._

_This was war. Everyone felt some sort of pain, but I couldn't imagine anyone feeling anything more painful than what I was feeling right then. You couldn't feel anything that hurt more than losing your best friend. Your only real friend. The one person you loved more than anything. What hurt even more was the fact that I never told him._

"Grayson." His name is a whisper on my lips.

_Blood was pooling on the ground around him and I felt it soaking my knees where I was crouched. I didn't really care that I was getting covered in blood. I didn't care about anything besides him right then. I wondered if I ever really did care about anything besides him._

_Because, after all, I loved him._

Finally, I feel my facade slip. I knew it would, eventually. Since two

days ago, when I held him dying in my arms and couldn't save him, there has been no substance to it, only a mist that hides what I feel-the fear, the pain, the loneliness. I feel as though a wind whips away the mist and I don't fight to keep it. I try again to speak his name.

"Grayson . . . I'm so sorry." Sorry . . . sorry . . . _sorry_.

I know he can't hear me, but at the moment I don't care. My voice breaks when I whisper, "I love you." Words he needed to hear. Words I never said. The tears start, and I make no effort to stop them. There is no one around to witness this. I am alone, not that I need a reminder of that, and, as I let the tears stream down my face, I know that this loneliness, like the regrets, is something I will have to face, every day, for the rest of my life.

But that's as it should be. After all, I could have stopped this from happening. I didn't love him enough. I could have saved him. He could still be here.

I wasn't good enough. I deserve this.

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><p><strong>Please review.<strong>

**mad'ika**


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